People want them though. I’ve seen a ton of Horde players who want them on our behalf!
Real talk, these deserve(d) to be a customization. It’s not just about the cosmetic difference being minor, though that’s a big part. It’s also gnomes are so unpopular on their own that it seems pointless to do this. Putting a minor twist on popular races can work out. Putting an extremely minor twist on an unpopular one seems like a terrible plan. That’s why the vulpera approach to the goblin rig just makes way more sense as an approach.
You won’t see more gnomes. You’ll see like 10 of the 50 gnome players play junker gnomes instead. No different than Highmountain and Lightforged, except even worse, and only for the Alliance this time.
I don’t want Mechagnomes either but I am sure we have no control over it. Blizzard does what they want. We always see that. I am honestly hoping it has nothing to do with an allied race and leads into the next new class like a Tinker and these appearances just become customization options for Gnomes as they should.
There, I bolded the part of your post I fixed. On topic though, I don’t care one way or the other about Mechagnomes. I don’t even play regular gnomes, but if there are people who like the idea, more power to them.
After seeing the mechagnomes I’m not real keen on them… honestly they look off… That being said I’d rather see something other than them as a playable race… Personally I’d like to see Ogres… That has been one that has been asked for a long time. We really don’t need anything else with fur, or elves or any of that… We need a wider diversity… Naga, Sethrak, Ethereals, Ogres etc.